Not all football writers created equal

Apparently it is already that time of year when writers who calls themselves experts with the mind-blowing powers of a Jedi-Knight on the National Football League comes out with their prediction of each team. It is with this in mind that I give you my take on the write up by SI.com’s Chris Burke.

You can check it out for yourself right here, but there are a couple of key indicators that tell you these national pundits know about as much is I do which is not nearly as much as we think we do. Here are a couple of points that Burke makes which I find interesting…

1. In the first of his “Three Things to Watch,” he talks about the loss of leadership and who could potentially fill the void left by Hines Ward, Aaron Smith, Chris Hoke, James Farrior and Chris Kemoeatu. Wait a minute, did he mention ‘Chris Kemoeatu’ as a loss of leadership? Kemo was anything but a leader as he accumulated more dumb penalties than a stock broker caught illegally trading.

The fact that he even mentioned Kemoeatu leaving is bad enough but to say the Steelers will miss his leadership is downright hysterical.

2. In his 3rd of “Three Things to Watch,” he compares our salary cap situation at the end of last year to the economic problems of Greece and you know what? That’s not too far from the truth. The problem is that he mentions our financial issues as the reasons why Hines Ward was not re-signed, why we can’t dip into the free agent market and not being able to re-sign Farrior.

Again, anyone covering the Steelers full-time like we at SA do (shameless plug) could tell you Hines Ward wasn’t coming back regardless of how much money we may have had and neither was James Farrior. Dipping into the free agent market is almost laughable, When do we ever dip into the free agent market? It’s more like sticking your toe in the free agent market for us.

Burke is a good writer as I’ve read his stuff before, but this is exactly why it’s so important to read guys who cover the Steelers for a living before you read the national stuff. They are writing to fill a void and will look for anything they can to make a deadline. I don’t mean to be all over Burke because he is but one of many. Just so happens he is the one I stumbled on this week.

There will be more and as Obi Wan-Kenobi said, “They’ll be back and in greater numbers.”